If she took her down the mountain she could get another veterinarian to assist, but travel often took more of a toll on injured animals than the procedure itself. Thus she was working with Becky, a competent veterinary nurse who worked under instruction. It wasn’t enough. She needed an expert, right here, right now, who could respond to minute-by-minute changes in the koala’s condition.

She was working as fast as she could to get the edges of the abscess clean but she couldn’t work fast enough. The little animal was slipping. To lose her after all this time… She was starting to feel sick.

‘Anyone there?’ It was a deep masculine voice, calling from the hallway. Whoever had knocked had come right in.

The door to their improvised operating theatre opened. Tori glanced up, ready to yell at whoever it was to get out-and it was Jake. Her one-and-a-half-minute date.

Whatever. It could be the king himself and there was only one reaction. ‘Out,’ she snapped, and Becky said, ‘I think she’s stopped breathing.’

Her attention switched back to her koala. She could have wept. To lose her now…

‘Can I help?’ Jake demanded.

She shook her head, hardly conscious that she was responding. She had to intubate. But if she left the wound… She couldn’t do both jobs herself.

‘Unless you can intubate…’ she whispered, hopeless. She shouldn’t have tried. The oral conformation of koalas-small mouth, narrow dental arcade, a long, soft palate and a caudally placed glottal opening, all of these combined with a propensity to low blood oxygen saturation-made koala anaesthetics risky at the best of times. And without another vet…

‘I can intubate,’ he snapped. ‘Keep working.’

‘You can?’

Jake was already at the side bench, staring down at equipment. ‘What size tube?’